Last January, NCPA urged Congress to investigate soaring generic drug prices after a member survey found that acquisition costs for some drugs had increased by more than 1,000%, but that reimbursement to pharmacies did not keep up. This call was recently answered by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) who launched an inquiry.

For years, NCPA has been at the forefront in calling for greater transparency in the operations of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), from highlighting difficulties plan sponsors often have in auditing their PBM to noting PBM practices that may increase costs to plans while increasing profits for the PBMs. While the PBMs claim there is already adequate transparency, their policies are drawing increased scrutiny.

After a great NCPA Annual Meeting in Austin, we weren’t done. On Wednesday, October 22nd we kept the momentum going with a day-long “Networking for High Performance Pharmacies” program for a standing room only crowd of 140 industry leaders. This provocative program afforded like-minded pharmacists not only the opportunity to get to know each other but to engage with public and private payers to hear about their plans for pay-for-performance and quality related network inclusion criteria.

Claims by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that a massive cost increase would result from legislation giving Medicare seniors in medically underserved areas more convenient access to discounted or “preferred” copays are “theoretically baseless,” a noted health care economist and antitrust expert argues in a new analysis.